Hi all; Debka reports that materiel is flowing to the Iraqi resistance from Syria:
Picture:
ad.debka.com
At Syrian Weapons Mart, T-72 Tanks for Sale, One Owner, Good Condition
Debka, January 16, 2004
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This arms market has sprung up, as DEBKA-Net-Weekly's exclusive intelligence and counter-terrorism sources have discovered, in back of the large train station at al-Qamishli, a forward point whence freight trains laden with oil and other products picked up at Syria's Mediterranean ports once set off for Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. One dark night in January, our sources sighted a tank transporter, its lights extinguished, pulling into the railway station, loading up a number of tanks and heading toward the Iraqi border. The buyer's identity is unknown, and US military intelligence is working on the problem on the premise that an Iraqi guerrilla or Baath party group has little use for medium-sized tanks. The most likely proposition examined by intelligence officials is that the buyers are US-allied Kurds who are engaged in establishing an autonomous border police force in northern Iraq.
Iraqi guerrilla forces may not be in the market for tanks but, in the second week of January, their agents purchased US-made 106 mm recoilless cannons in another Syrian city, Dayr az Zawr on the eastern banks of the Euphrates River. The cannon, mounted on jeeps, sell for about $900 to $1,000 apiece.
How did these American tools of war end up in Syria?
The long arms of Middle Eastern arms merchants stretch from the Middle East to Pakistan in the north, the Persian Gulf in the east and Jordan in the west, a country whose border is only a hop and a skip from Dayr az Zawr. The arsenals of all the countries in the region are packed with masses of recoilless guns made in the USA. Any emergency store might overlook 200 to 300 missing weapons filched for the Syrian black market.
According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s sources, the purchases on behalf of the Iraqi insurgents are made by agents of Iraqi mafia groups and "imported" into Iraq by several multi-forked routes.
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The transactions for the sale of tanks and recoilless guns in northern and eastern Syria are carried out with no questions asked. All that matters is that the $100 bills for payment are not counterfeit. According to our sources, a whole region of Syria -- running from al-Qamishli in the north southward to Dayr az Zawr - is one big arms bazaar. All of the dozen or so villages and towns in the region are in on the traffic, each specializing in a particular type of weaponry, from explosives to AK-47 rifles. Larger items like 60 mm machineguns or rocket-propelled grenade launchers, can be purchased at gas stations in the area. The concept of convenience store acquires a whole new meaning in this corner of the world.
According to our sources, prices are now climbing at a dizzying rate. As recently as November, a Kalashnikov A-47 assault rifle sold on the Syrian arms market for a mere $10. The same weapon -- ammo not included -- is now selling for $100. A crate of Russian grenades that cost from $17 to $22 is now going for $52 to $58, depending on year of manufacture.
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Washington is now waiting to see when and where Iraqi guerrilla forces start firing their US-made recoilless guns against American troops. Intelligence officials expect them to be used for long-range attacks on US military convoys.
debka.com
-- Carl
P.S. Is anyone interested in what a 106mm recoilless rifle does to a Humvee, a Stryker, or even a main battle tank? Here's a clue:
M-40A1 106MM Recoilless Rifle With M-8C Spotting Rifle
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The 106mm RCL was designed as a light weight anti-tank weapon that could kill main battle tanks. Ammunition was high explosive anti-tank (HEAT), high explosive, plastic (HEP), anti-personnel (APERS), and drill (inert). The .50 caliber spotting rifle M-8C was designed to be the primary ranging device for the weapon. The .50 caliber spotter round was much shorter than the .50 caliber Browning machinegun cartridge. The spotter round was a ballistic match to the HEAT and HEP rounds fired by the M-40A1. On impart with the armored target, the gunner saw a puff of white smoke in his sight. If the puff of smoke was on target, he fired the main gun. If not, he made his traverse and elevation corrections and fired the .50 spotter again. A one-shot hit with the 106mm was imperative, because the back blast from the breech extended in a cone-shaped fan 75 yards deep and 150 yards wide. A tank would have to be both stupid and blind to allow the 106mm gunner a second shot under such conditions.
HEAT round. The HEAT round uses the Monroe-effect to penetrate armor. The cone-shaped nose of the HEAT round is hollow. The hollow inside of the round is roughly diamond shaped; the upper half of the diamond is the sheet metal nose and the bottom is a copper cone. The empty space in the round forms what is known as the "standoff distance" and the copper cone focuses the blast which punches a hole through the armor plate. The explosive mixture is located in the body of the shell behind the copper cone and is capped with a base-detonating fuze. When the HEAT round hits armor, the nose of the projectile crumples until the cone comes in contact with the armor. Milliseconds after the hit, the base detonating fuze fires to detonate the explosive. The copper cone focuses the energy of the blast on a small spot of armor and burns a hole in it; the copper cone is formed into a slug which is blown through the hole into the tank. Armor hit by the HEAT round shows a characteristic circular scorch mark with a hole in the center similar to that caused by an acetylene torch.
HEP round. The projectile of the HEP round is more streamlined and rounded than the conical-shaped nose of the HEAT round. The HEP round operates against armor in a less spectacular, but most efficient way. The HEP shell (called "Squash Head" by the British) is actually a mesh bag filled with explosive inside a thin skinned projectile. When the HEP shell hits the armor, the projectile skin breaks away and the explosive-filled mesh bag mushrooms out against the plate. Milliseconds after the hit, a base detonating fuze explodes the filler. The explosion sends a shock wave through the armor plate that breaks off a huge chunk on the opposite side of the plate and sends it bouncing around the inside of the tank at very high velocity. Armor hit by HEP exhibits a characteristic circular scorch mark on the outside and a huge crater (where the armor was blown away) on the inside.
APERS round. The APERS round converts the RCL into a giant shotgun for use against infantry. The projectile is filled with 6,000 13-grain flechettes (looking like nails with fins) stacked nose-to-tail. The APERS round resembles the HEP round, but it has a nose fuze that allows it to function at the muzzle or at a preset distance from the muzzle of the RCL. The APERS round also has a tracer element in the base of the projectile.
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The weight of the complete M-40A1 weapons system is approximately 461 pounds. It has an overall length of 11.2 feet and a maximum range of 8,420 yards. Muzzle velocity of the round is approximately 1,650 feet/second. Armor penetration is approximately 6 inches at 60 degrees to the vertical.
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mst2-vietnam.info
Our armor is vulnerable to antitank weapons. Here's a reminder from this past summer:
‘Something’ felled an M1A1 Abrams tank in Iraq -- but what?
John Roos, Army Times, October 27, 2003
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"It’s a real strange impact," said a source who has worked both as a tank designer and as an anti-tank weapons engineer. "This is a new one. " It almost definitely is a hollow-charge warhead of some sort, but probably not an RPG-7 anti-tank rocket-propelled grenade.
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Limited spalling is a telltale characteristic of Western-manufactured weapons designed to defeat armor with a cohesive jet stream of molten metal. In contrast, RPG-7s typically produce a fragmented jet spray.
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At this time, it appears most likely that an RPG-22 or some other improved variant of the Russian-designed weapon damaged the M1 tank, sources concluded. The damage certainly was caused by some sort of shaped-charge or hollow-charge warhead, and the cohesive nature of the destructive jet suggests a more effective weapon than a fragmented-jet RPG-7.
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armytimes.com |
